Arthur Auwers
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Georg Friedrich Julius Arthur von Auwers (September 12 1838 – January 24 1915) was a German astronomer.
He worked at Königsberg (today Kaliningrad). He specialized in astrometry, making very precise measurements of stellar positions and motions. He detected the companion stars of Sirius and Procyon from their effects on the main star's motion, before telescopes were powerful enough to visually observe them. He was from 1866 Secretary to the Berlin Academy, and directed expeditions to measure the transits of Venus, in order to measure the distance from the earth to the Sun more accurately, and therefore be able to more accurately calculate the dimensions of the Solar System with greater precisions. He began a project to unify the all available sky charts, an interest that began with his catalog of nebulae which he published in 1862.
- Won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1888.
- Won the James Craig Watson Medal in 1891.
- Won the Bruce Medal in 1899.
A crater on the Moon is named after him.
External links
- Bruce Medal page (http://www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/BruceMedalists/Auwers/index.html)
- Awarding of Bruce Medal (http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/PASP./0011//0000061.000.html)
- Awarding of RAS Gold Medal (http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/MNRAS/0048//0000236.000.html)
Obituaries
- AN 200 (1915) 185/186 (http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/AN.../0200//0000109.000.html) (in German)
- MNRAS 76 (1916) 284 (http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/MNRAS/0076//0000284.000.html)
- Obs 38 (1915) 177 (http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/Obs../0038//0000177.000.html)de:Arthur Auwers